How high up? The biggest UK bat - THe Noctule, thinks it is a Swift
CityCyclingEdinburgh Forum » Leisure
Wildlife highlight of the day
(7341 posts)-
Posted 5 months ago #
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Not particularly high. Tree height, roughly.
Posted 5 months ago # -
Mushroom shaped tragus? Would have to be a blow in from SW scotland
Posted 5 months ago # -
Daubenton wingspan 25cm maybe more likely
Posted 5 months ago # -
Daubenton's tends to feed over water, hence its nickname "the water bat".
Natterer's bat can have a wingspan up to 30cm according to the Bat Conservation Trust whch also asserts: "absent from the north Scottish mainland and the western and northern islands favouring our parks, large gardens and woodlands." [link]
(And if you're wondering who Messrs Daubenton and Natterer were, you can read about them here and here.)
Posted 5 months ago # -
Appparently the Noctule shouts four times louder than the legal limit for nightclubs. THe Leisler is another candidate.
Posted 5 months ago # -
A skein of geese over Corstorphine Hill yesterday.
Posted 5 months ago # -
“
Once-extinct wildcats to make a comeback in England
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Posted 5 months ago # -
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"This project will significantly reduce debris entering the Water of Leith, supporting cleaner rivers and a healthier local environment for people and wildlife, including otters."“
Posted 3 months ago # -
Very dapper-looking dipper on the Braid Burn in Braidburn Valley Park on Saturday. And then again on Sunday, in the Hermitage (quite likely the same one). We've seen dippers in both locations before, but this was the first time since April 2024 (WoL and North Esk usually more reliable for dippers, which are one of our favourite birds).
Speaking of the WoL, we had a very good sighting of a stoat the previous weekend, in the scrubby field in the angle between the Lymphoy track and the track that leads to the Malleny Garden car park. Only the second time I've ever seen one. I actually registered it as a squirrel for a few seconds, until my brain clicked into gear and realised that it was moving far too sinuously for a squirrel, and it had a skinny tail with a black tuft on the end. It hung around for quite a while, leaping about between the tufts of rough grass next to the edge of the woodland beyond the field boundary.
Posted 2 months ago # -
As i came through the bridge at Harrison Park [west] five swans were landing almost filling the bridge. 50 metres away a 6th swan.
I like to feel the boroughmuir swan had repelled the wester hailes gang, Rooster Cogburn style.
The Boroughmuir swans are building their next [i fear they lost the three cygnets last year]
Posted 1 month ago # -
A few days ago I realised that I hadn't seen a sparrowhawk in quite a few months, possibly a couple of years.
One just flew about two feet over my head. Came low over our garden wall and then went over the house.
I could live with more distant, but more frequent, encounters.
Posted 1 month ago # -
Posted 1 month ago # -
About 80 whooper swans drifting along the Forth
(Yesterday)
Posted 3 weeks ago # -
I'm not sure when I last saw a sparrowhawk local to me. However I did spot a kestrel hovering nearby on Friday.
Posted 3 weeks ago # -
Three interesting spots of jackdaws (or possibly other corvids) in the last week:
1. A couple of jackdaws investigating whether they could get into someone's chimney.
2. The Duddingston parakeet making friends with a jackdaw. Both were on the ground, at the base of a tree. The parakeet was dancing backwards and forwards, and looked to be making beak-to-beak contact with the jackdaw each time it went forwards. The jackdaw stood still, seemingly indifferent.
3. A crow appeared to be chasing a sparrowhawk out of a neighbour's garden. Happened very quickly, so I can't be sure of either bird species.Posted 2 weeks ago # -
The Duddingston parakeet making friends with a jackdaw. Both were on the ground, at the base of a tree. The parakeet was dancing backwards and forwards, and looked to be making beak-to-beak contact with the jackdaw each time it went forwards. The jackdaw stood still, seemingly indifferent.
Reminds of Monty Python's Fish Slapping Dance:
Our highlight of yesterday was seeing martins and at least one swallow hawking for insects over the Musselburgh Lagoons. Other competing sightings: a small raft of three long-tailed ducks performing synchronised diving off the sea wall, ringed plover on the westernmost scrape, and a ridiculously handsome male kestrel perched in a young birch tree looking for voles in amogst the grass tussocks below. And then there was this dapper young fellow hanging around outside the RAF Air Cadets hut :
"Oh, it's just a starling..."
Posted 2 weeks ago # -
A swan seemingly on a nest on the island in The Loch at Heriot-Watt, following a complete lack of cygnets last year (although there were a pair of goslings), and a period during the winter when there was a complete lack of swans for several months...
Posted 2 weeks ago # -
Pair of flamingos in the Grevelingenmeer (Netherlands). Had no idea they lived that far north in the wild.
Posted 5 days ago # -
The swan seemed to have abandoned its nest at Heriot-Watt last week, so that was disappointing, but this morning I saw eight cygnets on the canal near Bridge 8 Hub, presumably with the Wester Hailes swan pair, although I'd forgot to check for the swan being on the nest when passing the lagoon so it is not impossible that they had swum in from further to the west.
I also saw some coot chicks and ducklings on Craiglockhart Pond during the weekend. The swan remains on the nest there for now.
Posted 4 days ago #
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